AT NEWPORT.
Moved by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings took himself and his
fast bays to Newport, instead of Saratoga, and thither, the first week
in August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eight large trunks, her niece and
her niece's wardrobe, which had cost the pretty sum of eighteen
hundred dollars.
Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money except where her
own interests were concerned, as they were in Anna's case. Conscious
of having come between her niece and the man she loved, she determined
that in the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages
which dress could afford should be lacking. Besides, Thornton Hastings
was a perfect connoisseur in everything pertaining to a lady's toilet,
and it was with him and his preference before her mind that Mrs.
Meredith opened her purse so widely and bought so extensively. There
were sun hats and round hats, and hats _à la cavalier_--there were
bonnets and veils, and dresses and shawls of every color and kind,
with the lesser matters of sashes and gloves and slippers and fans,
the whole making an array such as Anna had never seen before, and from
which she at first shrank back appalled and dismayed. But she was not
now quite so much of a novice as when she first reached New York the
Saturday following the picnic at Prospect Hill. She had passed
successfully and safely through the hands of mantua-makers, milliners
and hairdressers since then. She had laid aside every article brought
from home. She wore her hair in puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses
in the latest mode. She had seen the fashionable world as represented
at Saratoga, and, sickening at the sight, had gladly acquiesced in her
aunt's proposal to go on to Newport, where the air was purer and the
hotels not so densely packed. She had been called a beauty and a
belle, but her heart was longing for the leafy woods and fresh green
fields of Hanover; and Newport, she fancied, would be more like the
country than sultry, crowded Saratoga, and never since leaving home
had she looked so bright and pretty as the evening after her arrival
at the Ocean House, when invigorated by the bath she had taken in the
morning, and gladdened by sight of the glorious sea and the soothing
tones it murmured in her ear, she came down to the parlor clad in
simple white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no other
ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing
at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping
gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the
choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the
picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was
there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day, and had
not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning, but he
found her card in his room, and a strange smile curled his lip as he
said:
"And so I have not escaped her."
Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight and overthrown
his general's plans entirely. Arthur's letter had affected him
strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive
friend had been by Anna Ruthven's refusal, while added to this was a
fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of him and what might
possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been
flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did
not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna
should have designs upon him.
"But I won't give her a chance," he said, when he finished Arthur's
letter. "I thought once I might like her, but I shan't, and I'll be
revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I'll go
to Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith
clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all."
This, then, was the secret of his being there at the Ocean House. He
was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but
once, and that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where
Anna had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold,
shameless daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a maneuverer to
mention Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his
presence at Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall,
elegant man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all
Thornton's affected indifference, there was still a curiosity to see
the girl who could say "no" to Arthur Leighton, and he had not waited
long after receiving Mrs. Meredith's card before going down to find
her.
"That's the girl, I'll lay a wager," he thought of a high-colored,
showily-dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned
Peters, from Boston, and whose corn-colored dress swept against his
boots as he entered the parlor.
How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith
presented as "my niece," the modest, self-possessed young girl, whose
cheeks grew not a whit redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the
sight of him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the
brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and
her injunction "not to speak to the hateful if she saw him;" but she
did speak to him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she
saw how fast they became acquainted.
"You do not dance," Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation
from Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. "I am glad, for now you
will, perhaps, walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won't take
cold, I think," and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and
shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.
Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies and sat a full hour with the tiresome
dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton
Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to
women, and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was
fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he
could not deny himself, as he sat alone in his room that night,
feeling more and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt at her
refusal.
"But why did she refuse him?" he wished he knew, and ere he slept he
had resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if
possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur
Leighton.
The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who,
Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the
brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady
Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton's
parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to
ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a
bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny's
cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to
church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat
hanging down below and one of Lucy's opera hoods upon her head.
"And the clergyman on the brain? Does he appreciate the situation? I
have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine," Thornton
Hastings asked.
He had been an amused listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing
merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing
her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said,
was that she was a pretty, but frivolous, plaything, and it showed
upon his face as he asked the question he did, watching Anna furtively
as Fanny replied:
"Oh, yes, he is certainly smitten, and I must say I never saw Lucy so
thoroughly in earnest. Why, she really seems to enjoy traveling all
over Christendom to find the hovels and huts, though she is mortally
afraid of the smallpox, and always carries with her a bit of chloride
of lime as a disinfecting agent. I am sure she ought to win the
parson. And so you know him, do you?"
"Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem him so highly that,
had I a sister, there is no man living to whom I would so readily give
her as to him."
He was looking now at Anna, whose face was very pale, and who pressed
a rose she held so tightly that the sharp thorns pierced her flesh,
and a drop of blood stained the whiteness of her hand.
"See, you have hurt yourself," Mr. Hastings said. "Come to the water
pitcher and wash the stain away."
She went with him mechanically, and let him hold her hand in his
while he wiped off the blood with his own handkerchief, treating her
with a tenderness for which he could hardly account himself. He pitied
her, he said, suspecting that she had repented of her rashness, and
because he pitied her he asked her to ride with him that day after the
fast bays, of which he had written to Arthur. Many admiring eyes were
cast after them as they drove away, and Mrs. Hetherton whispered
softly to Mrs. Meredith:
"A match in progress, I see. You have done well for your charming
niece."
And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very far from Thornton
Hastings' thoughts that afternoon, when, because he saw that it
pleased Anna to have him do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping in
his unselfish heart that what he said in his praise might influence
her to reconsider her decision and give him a different answer. This
was the second day of Thornton Hastings' acquaintance with Anna
Ruthven, but as the days went on, bringing the usual routine of life
at Newport, the drives, the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the
quiet moonlight rambles, when Anna was always his companion, Thornton
Hastings came to feel an unwillingness to surrender, even to Arthur
Leighton, the beautiful girl who pleased him better than any one he
had known.
Mrs. Meredith's plans were working well, and so, though the autumn
days had come, and one after another the devotees of fashion were
dropping off, she lingered on, and Thornton Hastings still rode and
walked with Anna Ruthven, until there came a night when they wandered
farther than usual from the hotel, and sat down together on a height
of land which overlooked the placid waters, where the moonlight lay
softly sleeping. It was a most lovely night, and for a while they
listened in silence to the music of the sea, then talked of the
breaking up which came in a few days when the hotel was to be closed,
and wondered if next year they would come again to the old haunts and
find them unchanged.
There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking
out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield
her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making
her as happy as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his
home in the far-off city, which needed only her presence to make it a
paradise, and then he waited for her answer, watching anxiously the
limp white hands, which, when he first began to talk, had fallen so
helplessly upon her lap, and then had crept up to her face, which was
turned away from him, so that he could not see its expression, or
guess at the struggle going on in Anna's mind. She was not wholly
surprised, for she could not mistake the nature of the interest which,
for the last two weeks, Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But,
now that the moment had come, it seemed to her that she never had
expected it, and she sat silent for a time, dreading so much to speak
the words which she knew would inflict pain on one whom she respected
so highly but whom she could not marry.
"Don't you like me, Anna?" Thornton asked at last, his voice very low
and tender, as he bent over her and tried to take her hand.
"Yes, very much," she answered, and, emboldened by her reply, Thornton
lifted up her head, and was about to kiss her forehead, when she
started away from him, exclaiming:
"No, Mr. Hastings. You must not do that. I cannot be your wife. It
hurts me to tell you so, for I believe you are sincere in your
proposal; but it can never be. Forgive me, and let us both forget this
wretched summer."
"It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very happy summer,
since I knew you, at least," Mr. Hastings said, and then he asked
again that she should reconsider her decision. He could not take it as
her final one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of
making her his own to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many
reasons why she should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:
"If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month, but you must
not hope that my answer will be different from what it is to-night. I
want your friendship, though, the same as if this had never happened.
I like you, Mr. Hastings, because you have been kind to me, and made
my stay in Newport so much pleasanter than I thought it could be. You
have not talked to me like other men. You have treated me as if I, at
least, had common sense. I thank you for that; and I like you
because----"
She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say "because you
are Arthur's friend." That would have betrayed the miserable secret
tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings,
who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus
that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love
standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would
almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not a
little piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it,
accustomed, as he was, to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling
down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as
he walked slowly back to the hotel, where Mrs. Meredith was waiting
for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was
amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing
to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts
himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl who, bidding
him good night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and
he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:
"I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She
wishes for a month's probation, which I have granted, and I ask that
she shall not be persecuted about the matter. I wish for an unbiassed
answer."
He bowed politely, and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on
air as she climbed the three flights of stairs and sought her niece's
chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently,
and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the
rear of the hotel, watching the playful gambols of some children on
the grass, and wondering if she ever could conscientiously say "yes"
to Thornton Hastings' suit. He was coming toward her now, lifting his
hat politely, and asking what she would give for news from home.
"I found this on my table," he said, holding up a dainty little
missive, on the corner of which was written "In haste," as if its
contents were of the utmost importance. "The boy must have made a
mistake, or else he thought it well enough to begin at once bringing
your letters to me," he continued, with a smile, as he handed Anna the
letter from Lucy Harcourt. "I have one too, from Arthur which I will
read while you are devouring yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a
little ride. The September air is very bracing this morning," he said,
walking away to the far end of the piazza, while Anna broke the seal
of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it,
and trembling as if she guessed what it might contain.
There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she
glanced at the first few lines, then with a low, moaning cry, "No, no,
oh, no, not that," she fell upon her face.
To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was the work of an
instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs. Meredith's care, Thornton
Hastings went back to finish Arthur's letter, which might or might not
throw light upon the fainting fit.
"Dear Thornton," Arthur wrote, "you will be surprised, no doubt, to
hear that your old college chum is at last engaged--positively
engaged--but not to one of the fifty lambs about whom you once
jocosely wrote. The shepherd has wandered from his flock, and is about
to take into his bosom a little, stray ewe-lamb--Lucy Harcourt by
name--"
"The deuce he is," was Thornton's ejaculation, and then he read on.
"She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I need not describe
her, except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly
of fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little
Quakeress as one could wish to see. She visits constantly among my
poor, who love her almost as well as they once loved Anna Ruthven.
"Don't ask me, Thorne, in your blunt, straightforward manner if I
have so soon forgotten Anna. That is a matter with which you've
nothing to do. Let it suffice that I am engaged to another, and mean
to make a kind and faithful husband to her. Lucy would have suited you
better, perhaps, than she does me; that is, the world would think so,
but the world does not always know, and if I am satisfied, surely it
ought to be. Yours truly,
"A. LEIGHTON."
"Engaged to Lucy Harcourt? I never could have believed it. He's right
in saying that she is far more suitable for me than him." Thornton
exclaimed, dashing aside the letter and feeling conscious of a pang as
he remembered the bright, airy little beauty in whom he had once been
strongly interested, even if he did call her frivolous and ridicule
her childish ways.
She was frivolous, too much so, by far, to be a clergyman's wife, and
for a full half hour Thornton paced up and down the room, meditating
on Arthur's choice and wondering how upon earth it ever happened.